Unofficial Gear - Judgment
by Gwenniegirl Kennedy
Summary: "My name is Private Tegan Riley. I'm nineteen years old, a former US Army soldier, and an unofficial member of Kilo Squad, in the Coalition of Ordered governments. Unofficial, in the sense that I don't officially exist. How did I get here? That's a story you'd have to see to believe." Written by Link's Rose, M because blood and stuff. Eventual POSSIBLE Baird/OC later.
1. Prologue

Prologue

_Halvo Bay, 2100 hours_

_'Never thought I'd be in a situation like this...'_ I thought half-amusedly, looking at everything in my view from where I sat in a King Raven helicopter, along with Colonel Loomis, Damon Baird, Augustus Cole, and as-far-as-i-was-concerned unnamed Onyx Guards.

Paduk, Sofia and my best friend Azura were in the other Raven. _'Shit...she's only seventeen. Neither of us should be treated like this.'_ I thought, looking to the girl I considered my sister, and where she sat in the other Raven.

I wrinkled my nose unpleasantly as the smells from the city below wafted up to us. Dust, smoke, death and blood. That's what it smelled like. I tried not to focus on just how many we possibly killed just now.

_'Nineteen, and already I'm a war criminal. Wouldn't mommy-dearest be so proud of her little Tegan.'_ I internally muttered.

I wiggled my wrist uncomfortably, the cuffs digging into my wrists making me grimace. Baird, sitting directly across from me and right beside Loomis, noticed.

_"You good?"_ he mouthed to me. I nodded my head.

_"Scared shitless. You?"_ I mouthed back. He smirked, almost impishly, giving me a covert thumbs-up. I lapsed back into my own little confident facade as the KR neared our destination. I hadn't been kidding. Everything in my life that I'd ever gone through in my life combined was not enough to be as scary as this.

I barely even noticed when I was roughly 'escorted' off the Raven. I glared at the Onyx that had roughly nudged me forward, baring my teeth at him angrily.

"Just give me ten minutes to go back there and make sure the bastard's dead." I heard Baird say from beside me. I looked to him, just in time to make my hands twitch involuntarily as Loomis put his pistol to the back of the blond's head, point-blank. I clenched them into fists to keep from somehow trying to attack the man, and most-likely getting myself shot in the process. I didn't particularly feel like dying.

"Move, Lieutenant Baird." Loomis ordered. He shoved Baird to move him forward and I growled under my breath as we began walking. Damon- er, Baird, shot me a reassuring look out of the corner of his eye, and I cooled down. We both stopped, looking up to where we had been not long ago, and the raging inferno of the remains that was there.

Once again, I noticed Loomis in the corner of my vision, just in time for him to roughly shove Baird a second time, this time almost bowling him over completely. I instinctively moved to help him steady his balance, despite my cuffs. He waved me off with a hand, straightening up again, and we resumed our entrance into what was once an ornate court from the looks of it.

The six of us were lined up side-by-side before the place where the judge would sit, with three Onyx guards directly behind us, multiple more on the sidelines. Flinging the sheets of paper from the desk before him, Loomis nodded to the guards, who promptly removed the cuffs. I flexed my fingers and rotated my wrists to get feeling in them again, and my nervousness set in as I looked back up to where Loomis stood.

He rapped the butt of his revolver against the desk, drawing everyone's attention.

"The accused are denied any right to an attorney and may not question the authority of this tribunal."

_'Jackass. You really wanna conduct a trial while there's a fucking war on our doorstep?'_ I mentally snarled, narrowing my eyes at Loomis.

"So we can't ask why you're doing this now?" Paduk and I both asked, shooting each other looks.

"At the conclusion of this tribunal, I will issue a fair and swift verdict." Loomis snapped.

"Right, of course you will." the Gorasnian muttered. Sofia took her turn to speak up next.

"Colonel, are we being charged with doing our job?" she demanded. I actually agreed with her on that point. It didn't seem fair that we were being arrested and put on trial for what we did. The only charge that could really be held against us was defying the orders of our superior officer.

_'Ours?'_ I thought, raising my eyebrows slightly. Loomis continued talking, but I didn't hear it._ 'Hell, Azura and I aren't even supposed to be here. He isn't our superior, Azura's not even military!'_

"Now, civillian, I'd like to hear what you have to say for yourself." he ordered. I brought my gaze from the floor to his, and smirked.

"You're not gonna believe any of it." I said, but proceeded to start mine and Azura's story.

* * *

_A/N: This is Link's Rose. As you may have noticed, I deleted Unofficial Gear from Gwen's account. Why? I got a simply grand idea when Judgement came out. So, what you see is what you get, for now. I don't own Gears of War. Now, in the next chapter we're jumping back a little bit, to _just_ before Tegan and Azura wind up in Halvo Bay. Toodles!_


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

_Port Angeles, Washington State, 1400 hours._

_'It was a pretty average day for me, any day that I'm not on leave. I was hanging out with Azura at my apartment. I'd already done everything I needed to for the day, and we were just having some down-time.'_

_'What were you doing there?'_

_'Being completely honest? We were playing videogames.'_

"Aaand, that concludes the ending of Gears 1." I said with a grin as the credits began rolling before me. Azura was right beside me, amused.

"I like how Dom just casually asked what they were doing tomorrow." she said, and we both laughed. Then she sobered. "That creepy lady is creepy though. Who do you think that is?" she suddenly asked. I shrugged.

"We probably won't find out until Gears 2 comes out next month." I answered. I tried to hide the excitement in my voice. The first game had been explosive, and I'd already beaten it multiple times in the past two years, but a _second_ game? It seemed just too perfect.

Azura, having known me for twelve years, knew exactly what was going through my head. She smirked at me.

"Go ahead, I'll tolerate your fangirling." she said with a mock-exasperated sigh. I laughed, but shook my head.

"I can control myself. Now, how about some lunch?" I asked, standing up from the couch. She nodded her head, already re-opening her last page in Brisingr, the third book in the Eragon series. It had just come out last month, and she'd read through it twice. It really made me wonder what she even did when I was at the base.

I'd just pulled out the ingredients for some sandwiches, when everything went wrong. It was like fog had seeped into the house, or like the fog that surrounded my memory palace* that represented where my world ended and the real world started. I couldn't feel or smell it, and I wondered if I was just hallucinating.

"Uh, Tegan?" Azura called to me from my room, where my game system was. Her pitch was a bit higher than normal, indicating panic. The fog closed around me making me unable to see, but following my memory I ran to my room, trying to outrun the fog. I froze in the doorway, just as Azura bumped into me. The fog was closing underneath our feet, and I hugged her to me, even as it began to block her from my view.

Then the fog began to darken, until I could see nothing but myself. My center of gravity shifted, so it seemed like my back was being pulled towards the ground, wherever it was, and suddenly the world was substantial again.

* * *

I was falling.

I let out a shocked cry as I impacted on the hard pavement, and Azura landed on top of me. The combined collisions knocked the air from my chest, and stars flooded my vision from the impact on the back of my head.

"Ow..." I groaned quietly. I was briefly reminded of a misadventure in Basic Army training, but I shook it off. I needed to clear my head, and figure out what the hell just happened.

"Tegan, are you okay?" Azura asked as she rolled off me and onto her feet. She helped me up, and I put a hand to the back of my head. There was warm liquid there, and when I pulled my hand back to my vision to look at it, my fingertips were covered in blood.

"Yeah, I'm fine. It's probably just a minor concussion." I said quietly, still a bit disoriented. The ground was shaking beneath us, and I could smell ashes and smoke in the air. It suddenly occurred to me to look around us, and I gasped.

There was no way we were in Port Angeles anymore.

* * *

"I'm sorry to interrupt, but I need to address something. Do you mean to tell me that you're from another planet?" Loomis asked disbelievingly. I gave him a stony expression, nodding my head. I heard some of the Onyx guards snort. They didn't believe me either. It wasn't like I gave a damn anyways, though.

"Believe me or don't, can I continue?" I shot back, an almost-petulant tone entering my voice. He gestured with a hand for me to continue. "Thank you. As I was saying, there was no way we were in our hometown anymore..."

* * *

"U-Uh, Tegan? Where are we?" Azura asked fearfully. I looked to her, and saw she had terror written all over her face as her eyes flitted from one thing to another. I looked around us, trying to find anything that could be of help; a newspaper, some sort of street sign, or a person. The first thing I found was actually a newspaper. I didn't look at anything but the first few sentences, and I confirmed my thoughts; we weren't even on Earth anymore. One of the names that I'd picked up from the newspaper article was Halvo Bay, I figured that was where we were right then. There were mentions of things I recognized from the Gears of War game; The Hammer of Dawn, and the Locust, specifically.

"We're on Sera. That planet Gears of War takes place on? We're there. And from the look of this, it hasn't been that long since the COG roasted the planet." I answered her when I came back, handing her the newspaper. She read through it, and came to the same conclusion as I did. But, instead of believing the evidence around me, she said;

"That's impossible."

The ground continued to shake beneath us, I actually wondered how long it had been doing that. I also wondered if there were any Locust nearby. God, I hoped not. A nearby, non-human growl alerted me to the fact that God currently didn't care about what I hoped for.

"Run!" I hissed, grabbing her wrist and breaking out into a sprint until we were hidden by the frame of an old, demolished car. I heard voices not that far away, and a sudden eruption of gunfire.

"Tegan, what the hell is going on?" Azura demanded in a panicky tone. I almost frowned, usually Azura was the one to chastise me if I swore, but now she was the one swearing. Or, at least what she would consider swearing.

"We're on another planet, specifically the Gears of War planet." I repeated simply, hugging her to me again. Ever since I'd met Azura, I'd taken on the role of 'Big sister', as well as her protector. I'd chase off boys when I needed to, and talk to other ones who decided to pick on her for no reason. I had almost maternal instincts when it came to her, and that flared up right now. I couldn't let anything happen to her.

I held my breath when the gunfire stopped. What if the Locust had been the ones to win? I didn't want to move, because of that fear. I scanned the ground, for any type of weapon I could use against the Locust. There was nothing. I internally sighed, even as my heart raced. I looked to Azura severely. "Stay down." I mouthed to her, and I crept slowly to the edge of the car to look out. I almost collapsed in relief when I saw that the Gears were alive.

I allowed myself a quiet sigh of relief, but it seemed that would be my undoing; damn, these guys had good hearing.

I yelped when someone fired a shot inches away from my head, actually feeling the heat of the bullets blurring past me.

"Check fire, dickhead!" I yelled, appalled, as I stood up, glaring at the one that had fired the shot. I didn't recognize him from the game, but I did recognize the face next to his; Damon Baird. Holy shit.

"This city was supposed to be evacuated of all civillians. Identify yourself." The woman behind them both said. I frowned at her.

"I'm not a Civvy. I'm a soldier. Not COG, not UIR, but I am a soldier. Private Tegan Riley, at your service." I said, casually saluting. I could tell, just from the looks on their faces - was that Cole in the background too? - that this was gonna be a long night.

* * *

"I'm sure Lieutenant Baird can inform you of what happened after that." I said in a flippant tone. Loomis glared at me, before looking to Baird.

"Continue with what happened after that, Lieutenant." he finally said.

* * *

_A/N: So, official chapter one. I made a few minor edits to the first one, so you may wanna check those out. I don't own Gears of War, of the Inheritance Cycle that was mentioned. As much as I wish I did._

_* The timeline of Tegans -technically ours as well- universe is set one month before Gears of War 2 came out in 2008, making it October there._

_** The memory palace is a real method for memorizing information. Look it up if you're interested. I don't have a palace myself: I don't have Tegan's patience._


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

**"****_I've been a Lieutenant for a week. So when I was told, reinforce a convoy, I was ready to show off my stuff."_**

**"****_That's one way to describe your behaviour, Lieutenant."_**

**"****_Whatever it was, it looked like it was headed right for our convoy. Only Paduk knew what he was looking at. But he didn't say anything. Not yet. We'd been in Halvo Bay for a few days. We'd seen some action, but nothing like... um, you know."_**

**"****_Nothing like _****what****_, Lieutenant?"_**

**"****_Nothing like _****Karn****_, sir. Anyways, further down the street we found more of the Locust Drones, and after we picked them off was where we found Private Riley."_**

* * *

"What do you mean by that?" Baird was the one to question as he approached me. He was suspicious. I could tell. But what the hell was I supposed to tell him? I was from another universe, where he existed in a videogame?

"I _mean_, I'm not a Gear, and I'm not a member of the UIR." I answered, crossing my arms. I stood protectively between them and Azura, without realizing it. "Honestly, if I told you where I'm from, you would call me crazy. But I can fight, and from the looks of that convoy," I pointed towards the street to my right, where I could see the remains of said COG convoy. "You're gonna need all the help you can get."

Baird, possibly-Cole, and the other two I didn't know moved so they could follow where I was pointing, and went to investigate. Meanwhile I turned back to Azura as she slowly stood up completely.

"**_Our convoy had been wiped out. In Minutes. Never seen anything like it."_**

"What're we gonna do? If the first game took place fifteen years after E-Day, and this is not long after..." she asked, trailing off. I sighed.

"I don't know. Our best chance of surviving is sticking with those guys." I said, jerking my thumb to point to the Gears. After a moment's deliberation, she nodded her head.

"You're right."

"Let's go."

We jogged to catch up with them, making a pointed note not to look at the ground except to avoid any obstacles. Azura didn't need to see dead bodies any more than I did. I stopped when we reached them, only for a moment.

"So who are you guys, then?" I asked, walking up to the red-headed woman, who was behind the other Gears. Before she could answer, there was an inhuman growl. Ah, yep. Locust. Again. Before something could start shooting, I grabbed a Lancer from one of the deceased gears, checking the clip. I inwardly smirked. Here I was, being useful.

I skittered back a ways to avoid being shot.

Being proud of myself could wait until I did something to actually be proud _of._

"Azura, get down!" I called to the girl behind me. She did so, crouching behind the stone...railing, I suppose is the best word, as the Gears opened fire on the Locust that we could see. From what I could tell, there were a handful of grubs and a whole lot of Wretches. So far. Damn, those things were disgusting.

For a girl who's known how to shoot a gun since she was ten years old, things like the recoil on a gun is something that becomes...familiar, in a way. But even with that, this was nothing I'd ever experienced before. This was _crazy!_ But the sound of gunshots ringing in my ears, and the pungent smell of iron and ash hung heavily in the air. I wasn't behind the safety of a TV screen. There would be no 'Load Last Checkpoint' option if I got shot and died, there wouldn't be ammo that just happened to be there when I needed it. This was _real_.

"Get your ass in gear, Private! You coming or not?" I heard Baird holler. We'd cleared out the street, at least this side.

"Yeah!" I called, grabbing Azura's hand. I led her behind me as we ran towards the stairs that would move us along what I assumed was the designated path. As rubble and some broken glass crunched beneath my boots, I was glad I'd gotten into a habit of leaving said boots on, even when I was in my house.

I looked to Azura again when it seemed I'd be entering the warzone.

"Keep your head down until I tell you it's safe, got it?" I ordered, kneeling her down behind the cover beside Cole. She nodded her head. "Good." Grabbing my Lancer, I followed Baird to another spot of cover, opening fire at the Locust as often as I dared. I saw him shoot me a smirk.

"Welcome to the Coalition, Private. Lieutenant Baird of Kilo Squad." he introduced himself.

Despite the fact I was scared out of my mind, I grinned at him.

"Wouldn't have expected any different a welcome, Lieutenant." I shot back.

* * *

"We got a grub hole!" the woman called.

"Big Ugly, comin' up!" Oh yeah, that was _definitely_ Cole. Wait.. Big ugly? Oh shit, a Boomer!

Without thinking, I grabbed a grenade off Baird's belt and pulled the pin, hurling it at the E-Hole, conveniently right next to it, as well as next to the Boomer.

"Frag out!" I yelled. The other two gears as well as Cole ducked, just as the grenade went off. Surprisingly, that had taken out the Boomer and cleared the E-Hole. Now there were jsut two more grubs, easily taken care of.

"Colonel Loomis, this is Lieutenant Baird. Big problem, sir. Our convoy just got destroyed." Baird said as he put his fingers to his ear. Tac-Com. I almost forgot about that. The response came quick, and it was another voice I didn't recognize. Then again, I _was_ fourteen years before the Lightmass Offensive. I probably wouldn't know _most_ of the people here in this time.

"_Then move on to the Museum of Military Glory. It's under attack." _the voice ordered.

"Sir, whatever destroyed our convoy's still out there." Baird protested.

"_Noted, Lieutenant." _

Baird sighed. "Yes, sir. Come on, Kilo. You heard the man." he said, and the team started moving forward.

"I heard him. Doesn't mean I like him." Cole grumbled. It seemed this 'Loomis' character wasn't a very likable person.

"And Private, I suggest you come with us. You two won't do much better with us than you would on your own, but we could always use another set of hands." Baird addressed Azura and I next.

I considered it for a moment. It was true, we'd be just as well off on our own now that I had a gun, but I wanted to see where this went. My curiosity often liked to get the better of me, and this was something that happened fourteen years before the original game! How cool was that?

"Alright, I'm in. Azura?" I looked to her, and she nodded her head as well. "Alright, that makes two of us. Just a quick bit though, Azura _is_ a civilian. Not very good with guns, but if it comes down to it she's a master with computers."

Baird nodded approvingly. "We could probably make good use of that back in Command, or Control. Let's go, Kilo." Then he proceeded to shoulder-check the door in front of us, opening the way we needed to go.

"_The museum was on the other side of the river- the side the COG no longer controlled. I thought maybe we could slip through unnoticed." _

The building we were in seemed to be an old wine cellar, or something. There were broken and empty bottles, and barrels all over the place.

"Hm, nice. This would make a fine UIR headquarters." the other man said, and I easily picked up the equivalent of a Russian accent in his voice. The equivalent of Russia on Sera was..Gorasnia, I believe. So there was a Gorasnian with us in Kilo Squad.

"Yeah, don't go filling your canteen, Paduk." Baird retorted. Paduk. So that was his name. Now I just needed to figure out who the redhead Onyx was. She didn't look familiar, at all.

"So _this_ is what a UIR sniper rifle looks like." Baird said, kneeling next to a corpse with a rifle in it's hands.

"This isn't a gun! It's a comrade!" Paduk growled.

* * *

"_It turned out that someone had designated the Old Town a Hammer of Dawn free-fire zone. With our radios down, all we could do was rush through as fast as possiible."_

"Oh, lovely, Boomers. " I exclaimed sarcastically as I saw the Boomers on the street above us. I watched as Baird took one out with the sniper we'd just found, and behind him I saw Azura eyeing a pistol on the ground with a deliberating expression on her face. "Santiago, get your ass into cover!" I shouted at her. She ran over to me, grabbing the pistol as she passed through the open area. "What do you think you're doing? You've never shot a gun before in your life!" I demanded, snatching the pistol from her. She glared at me.

"You joined the army when you were seventeen, and there's a first time for everything!" she retorted.

"We don't have time for this, Riley. Move it you two!"

* * *

"We've got a Grinder!" I called to the Gears. "And three Boomers!" I added at a second look. I was amazed, in a small corner of my mind, how well I was taking all of this. And Azura, too. She was always terrified of the war stories my Grandpa told us when he visited, I could only imagine what she was feeling inside right now, actually living out a war.

In any case, I was _really_ enjoying this UIR rifle. Unlike the Longshot in Gears 1, you had more than one shot, and didn't take five minutes -overexaggerated- to reload. But something I found morbidly funny, was that this was my first true honest-to-god field experience, in my two years of being in the Army. My brother said the first time he killed something, he'd gone into shock for two days. What would that mean for me, when all was said and done? I wasn't even fighting _humans_.

"Tegan, Wretches!" Azura's voice pulled me from my thoughts, and I saw a bunch of wretches gallop out of the door that had been behind us. I switched back to my Lancer that I'd left sitting on the ground beside me, and started shooting at the annoying little fucks.

"Looks dead to me." I said as one fell dead at my feet. In the sane corner of my mind, I noticed that I'd just indirectly quoted Marcus.

"That's the last of them here. Let's move."

"_There were only six of us. We had a better shot if we snuck through some buildings. It was obvious the evac hadn't gotten very far in Old Town. I wondered where everybody was..."_

* * *

_A/N: Link's Rose, to , do you read? No, but seriously. Here's chapter three, and I'm thinking two 'chapters' in the game per chapter of the story, unless a person's testimony ends before that can happen. I don't own Judgment, Tegan and Azura are mine. _


End file.
